Dennett's Philosophy:
A Comprehensive Assessment

Don Ross, Andrew Brook + David Thompson (editors)

Those interested in Daniel Dennett won't want to miss this book, which
contains papers by fourteen philosophers on different aspects of his
work, along with a response by Dennett himself. The "comprehensive
assessment" claim is an exaggeration, but the collection spans a broad
range: it focuses on Dennett's core areas of meaning and consciousness,
but extends to his work on evolution and ethics. Most of the papers are
more technical and less accessible than Dennett's own books, however, so
the volume is not an ideal introduction to his work and may not appeal to
those who only know him through books such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea
and The Mind's I.

Dennett has always refused to build a grand system and some of the
contributors clearly find this frustrating: many of the papers are
less assessments of his work than attempts to pin him down, to place
his ideas into a broader system or in some cases to construct such a
system for them. Others attack Dennett on different fronts. In his
sixty page response "With a Little Help From My Friends" Dennett finds
some suggestions useful, rebuts criticisms, and gracefully and urbanely
refuses to be systematized.

The papers:

Don Ross' introduction outlines the "Denettian Stance" and glances
over the other contributions.

Paul Dumouchel constructs an antinomy of natural reason in the
distinction between "Good Tricks" and "Forced Moves" in evolution.

Ruth Millikan continues a long-running debate with Dennett over the
theory of meaning, arguing among other things that the design stance
is more basic than the intentional stance.

Timothy Kenyon asks "What would have to be the case in order for
mental properties to be real?" and concludes that "psychological states
are both real and mind dependent".

William Seager argues that we have to reject a naive "scientific picture
of the world" in favour of a "surface metaphysics", a modern empiricism
"that takes mind or 'patterns' as basic".

Christopher Viger argues that there are two ontological positions
— instrumentalist and small "r" realist — mixed up in Dennett's
"intentional stance", and offers a reconciliation of them consistent
with both his agendas.